Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think that it is important that we focus our attention on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Removal of the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and National Governance Protocols Requirements and Other Matters) Bill 2008 today because it represents a critical stage in Labor’s program to remove Work Choices. I am pleased today that Senator Mason has acknowledged the mandate that we achieved in the last election in relation to the Work Choices component of the higher education arrangements, but there are also elements, which I will cover in a moment in responding to Senator Milne’s comments, that apply much more broadly than to just the workplace relations requirements that need to be removed here.

These arrangements, the higher education workplace relations requirements and the national governance protocols, were a core example of the excesses of the Howard government, a core example of their highly interventionist approach in attempting to shift the balance of workplace relations away from workers’ rights and entitlements. In some ways it is quite contradictory to their ideology that choice and flexibility should apply, and I note that in his contribution this morning Senator Mason referred to looking at corporations and what they do. I would like to see where we are requiring a certain board size or other prescription similar to that in relation to our corporations’ arrangements. Here we had perhaps the strongest interventionist approach by the former government in their attempt to shift the balance in workplace relations. I am pleased that today at this stage of a Labor government we are able to deal with not only the workplace relations issues but also the less direct approach taken by the then government and their protocols to try to control the employment relations in higher education.

The bill will amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003, HESA, by repealing the section requiring that higher education providers meet any higher education workplace relations requirements and national governance protocols imposed under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme guidelines. Under section 33.17 a provider would have its basic CGS grant amount reduced by approximately 7.5 per cent if at 31 August each year it failed to satisfy the minister that it had complied with both the higher education workplace relations requirements and the national governance protocols in the previous year—highly interventionist and high level of monitoring of the behaviour of these institutions, in a very inflexible manner.

The higher education workplace relations requirements consist of the following five elements. There is the so-called choice in agreement making, including the requirement to offer Australian workplace agreements to all employees. The abolition of AWAs was a key promise of this government, as I have said; we received that mandate in the last election, and I am glad the opposition has seen that far in its approach today. The other elements are: direct relationships with staff, which prohibits automatic third-party representation; workplace flexibility; productivity and performance; and freedom of association provisions.

I will move on now to the national governance protocols, which are a set of standards primarily covering the size and composition of governing bodies and the duties of governing body members. Repealing the higher education workplace relations requirements and the governance protocols will remove only the conditions on CGS funding. Full funding will be retained by providers. While the national governance protocols will be removed as a condition of funding, the government will continue to encourage universities to adopt good governance practices. This will include pursuing options for a non-legislative focus on governance standards in response to the forthcoming report of the review of the national governance protocols by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. We are still serious about looking at outcomes from our educational institutions, and that review process will ensure that it is done in a healthy and constructive environment. We believe that the removal of the requirements as a condition of funding will be welcomed by the higher education sector. As Senator Milne said, we could all sit here today and quote various comments from the sector about the applications of these provisions, and I look forward to further elaboration on some of those points.

I will cover generally the culture of the higher education sector. Senator Carr and I recall the review that the Senate did called Universities in crisis, and I am sure there are many updates that I have not followed as closely in recent years. But I want to touch firstly on Australian workplace agreements. Remember, this was the Howard government’s approach to trying to force growth in the number of Australian workplace agreements. In the early stages they were not particularly popular; they were not the greatest way for employers to manage their day-to-day affairs on the ground. So what the Howard government did next was seek to impose AWAs artificially through its institutional arrangements, such as its funding arrangements for higher education. Through the Senate and through Senate estimates we spent much time trying to get details about the outcomes of AWAs, and the Office of the Employment Advocate had been constrained in the information that it would provide. There was very limited transparency. I recall Senator Mason saying how important he felt transparency should be.

At the end of the day, when we finally had access to the data about what AWAs were actually achieving on the ground, there were some outcomes that I will put before the Senate as a very tidy summary of the impact of AWAs, whether in higher education or across the board. Seventy per cent of them removed shiftwork loadings, 68 per cent of them removed annual leave loadings and 65 per cent removed penalty rates. With my occupational background, as someone who has worked in a sector where penalty rates often significantly supplement low rates of pay for part-time, predominantly female and young workers, I can say that 65 per cent losing penalty rates was an enormous impact on people’s take-home pay. This is why the Howard government was not re-elected.